Updated Wednesday at 8:15 a.m. to include comments from Max Fournier’s lawyer Mark Sisti.
By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
As Max Fournier, a former Grafton County corrections officer, is scheduled for trial on charges he sexually assaulted two female inmates, InDepthNH.org has learned his old boss was also accused of assaulting a woman at the jail.
Fournier’s trial is slated to begin Monday in Grafton Superior Court. He was charged in 2022 after a nearly two-year investigation by the Grafton County Sheriff’s Department.
Fournier’s lawyer, Mark Sisti, was unavailable for comment. Update: “My client is absolutely innocent and cannot wait to go to trial.”
When he was removed from his position in 2020, Fournier was a corporal and responsible for training other corrections officers as well as making sure prisoners had basic needs met. At the time, his boss was Superintendent Tom Elliott.
Fournier is charged with multiple counts of felonious sexual assault. A relative of one of the victims previously told InDepthNH.org that Fournier made threats to keep her from reporting the alleged abuse. Fournier had control of nearly every aspect of the women’s daily lives while they were inside the jail.
The allegations first surfaced in 2019, but Fournier was not removed until May of 2020 after the criminal probe started.
In the middle of the Fournier investigation, multiple other investigations were launched concerning Grafton County Corrections staff, according to documents obtained by InDepthNH.org, including at least one internal investigation and one criminal investigation.
In a 2021 investigation into an unrelated criminal case, a female staffer at the jail told investigators with the Grafton County Sheriff’s Department that she had been involved in a relationship with Elliott starting when she was about 21 in which she was subjected to non-consensual sexual encounters, according to an investigator’s report on her statement.
Elliott retired from the county last year and could not be reached for comment. InDepthNH.org is not at this time identifying the woman and neither she nor her attorney, Marc Beaudoin, agreed to comment when contacted.
The woman told the investigator with the Grafton County Sheriff’s Department that Elliott, then a lieutenant in the jail, used his position as her supervisor to “groom” her for a sexual relationship.
“She thought that perhaps 10 percent of the time she had consented to such contact, however did feel that [Elliott] used his authority to ‘groom her’ in preparation for a relationship,” the report states.
The woman told the investigator she engaged in sexual contact both on and off duty with Elliott, and both in the jail and off the jail grounds, according to the report. At the time, Elliott was divorced from his wife, the woman said. The relationship lasted about four months, and the woman stayed employed at the jail.
“[S]he still feels she remains under the psychological control of [Elliott] because of his position of authority over her,” the investigative report states.
The woman made clear she did not wish to pursue any further investigation into Elliott, however. Elliott was never charged and Grafton County Attorney Martha Ann Hornick did not respond to a request for comment.
A few months after the woman told the investigator about her relationship with Elliott, the county hired employment law firm Jackson and Lewis to investigate in June of 2021. Court records indicate the Jackson and Lewis investigation concerned the same woman and “her boss.”
The county refused InDepthNH.org’s prior right-to-know request for records from the Jackson and Lewis investigation. However, the county confirmed it used $9,000 in taxpayer money to pay the law firm.
Fournier was indicted in 2022 for the alleged assaults of two different female prisoners, called Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 in the court files. He’s charged with one class B felony for felonious sexual assault, and three special enhanced felonies for aggravated felonious sexual assault. The three aggravated felonious sexual assault charges are enhanced due to Fournier’s position of authority over the woman.
